Editors Select

See What We're Most Excited About in May

Just like you, we Editors at Audible have books each month that we just can't wait to get our hands on. Whether it's a favorite author, genre, or narrator, there are some books we'll drop everything to start listening to. So we wanted to share with you the five that have caught our attention the most this month.

A Case of Redemption

A high-profile attorney in the middle of a leave of absence following a personal tragedy is drawn back into the legal arena amidst a media firestorm when he agrees to represent a popular rap artist accused of brutally murdering his pop star girlfriend. With its powerful voice, pause-resisting tension, and strong cast of characters, Adam Mitzner’s novels are reminiscent of such best-selling authors as Scott Turow and John Grisham.

cristina says:"Excellent"

This was my first time listening to a legal thriller, and I can safely say I’m hooked. I had always shied away from the genre, assuming that the plots were too fantastical – but this story has a ripped-from-the-headlines feel, creating a relevancy that will attract both newbies like me and established thriller fans. Mitzner delivers a character-driven narrative, while seamlessly blending romance, criminal law, and suspense, keeping me guessing until the very end. Kevin T. Collins does a marvelous job narrating–the emotion that he pours into each character captivated me from the start. I felt all of the triumphs and setbacks of the case, and I found myself deeply invested in its outcome. I really hope that this duo works together again,

This was my first time listening to a legal thriller, and I can safely say I’m hooked. I had always shied away from the genre, assuming that the plots were too fantastical – but this story has a ripped-from-the-headlines feel, creating a relevancy that will attract both newbies like me and established thriller fans. Mitzner delivers a character-driven narrative, while seamlessly blending romance, criminal law, and suspense, keeping me guessing until the very end. Kevin T. Collins does a marvelous job narrating–the emotion that he pours into each character captivated me from the start. I felt all of the triumphs and setbacks of the case, and I found myself deeply invested in its outcome. I really hope that this duo works together again, but in the meantime, I’m going hunting for more from both the author and the narrator. --Katie, Audible Editor

NOS4A2: A Novel

Victoria McQueen has an uncanny knack for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. When she rides her bicycle over the rickety old covered bridge in the woods near her house, she always emerges in the places she needs to be. Vic doesn't tell anyone about her unusual ability, because she knows no one will believe her. She has trouble understanding it herself.

Jacqueline says:"Finish to Start Excellent is Novel This"

Christmasland is a place where every day is Christmas morning and every night is Christmas Eve. This might not sound like fertile ground for a horror novel, but rest assured, just as there's nothing funny about Pennywise the Dancing Clown in Stephen King's It, there's nothing merry about Christmasland in NOS4A2. Joe Hill tells the story of decrepit child thief Charlie Manx, who travels the country in his Rolls Royce Wraith, taking mistreated kids to Christmasland, where they live happily forever playing games like "bite-the-smallest" and "scissors-for-the-drifter". The only girl who managed to escape his clutches and put Manx in prison for life finds that even Manx's death can't keep him from his quest to make sure every mistreated ..

Christmasland is a place where every day is Christmas morning and every night is Christmas Eve. This might not sound like fertile ground for a horror novel, but rest assured, just as there's nothing funny about Pennywise the Dancing Clown in Stephen King's It, there's nothing merry about Christmasland in NOS4A2. Joe Hill tells the story of decrepit child thief Charlie Manx, who travels the country in his Rolls Royce Wraith, taking mistreated kids to Christmasland, where they live happily forever playing games like "bite-the-smallest" and "scissors-for-the-drifter". The only girl who managed to escape his clutches and put Manx in prison for life finds that even Manx's death can't keep him from his quest to make sure every mistreated child is taken to Christmasland. As eerie as a Bing Crosby album played at half speed, NOS4A2 is a thoroughly creepy and compulsively readable supernatural thriller. Kate Mulgrew shines as narrator, turning in a spot-on performance as Victoria McQueen, a tough-as-nails (if emotionally frail) heroine. --Michael, Audible Editor

Dead Ever After: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel, Book 13

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Charlaine Harris has won numerous awards for her Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series, which has been adapted into the hit HBO show True Blood. In this 13th and final book, a murder rocks the town of Bon Temps and Sookie is arrested for the crime. After making bail, she sets out to clear her name - but her investigation only leads to more deaths.

k says:"Bitter ending? Cleanse your palate."

Dead Ever After. The end of an era. Lucky number 13. As great as my anticipation is, and as high as my expectations are, I can’t help but be sad that there will be no more Sookie adventures to read. It’s hard to put so many otherworldly creatures into ours, make it a little sexy and a little mysterious, and succeed the way Harris has without resorting to cheap titillations. In the final book (though I heard a rumor about character epilogues), Sookie is arrested for murder and must solve what could be her most difficult mystery yet. Johanna Parker returns as narrator and expertly falls into the role, keeping our heroine’s characteristic smoky, smoldering voice on perfect, no-nonsense levels. Come on back down to Bon Temps–this is

Dead Ever After. The end of an era. Lucky number 13. As great as my anticipation is, and as high as my expectations are, I can’t help but be sad that there will be no more Sookie adventures to read. It’s hard to put so many otherworldly creatures into ours, make it a little sexy and a little mysterious, and succeed the way Harris has without resorting to cheap titillations. In the final book (though I heard a rumor about character epilogues), Sookie is arrested for murder and must solve what could be her most difficult mystery yet. Johanna Parker returns as narrator and expertly falls into the role, keeping our heroine’s characteristic smoky, smoldering voice on perfect, no-nonsense levels. Come on back down to Bon Temps–this is not a murder to be missed. --Erin, Audible Editor

Odds Against Tomorrow

New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of an empty office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming. As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe - ecological collapse, war games, natural disasters - he becomes obsessed by a culture's fears.

Holly says:"Stay away"

I was interested in Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow because it sounded like an off-centered, dark, and altogether odd story. What I’ve read so far has proven me right, but there’s so much more to be discovered that I’m thoroughly intrigued by what lies ahead. Mitchell Zukoff is in the insurance business, and a recent catastrophe has driven a huge demand for his work. He’s good at selling fear because he himself is intensely fearful–of carbon monoxide poisoning, tidal waves, fault lines, and other disasters and their probabilities. While Rich’s tone gives a sense of impending doom, there is an optimistic lightness in Mitchell’s unusual correspondence with an old friend, and it’s this light/dark contrast that I find most interesting ..

I was interested in Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow because it sounded like an off-centered, dark, and altogether odd story. What I’ve read so far has proven me right, but there’s so much more to be discovered that I’m thoroughly intrigued by what lies ahead. Mitchell Zukoff is in the insurance business, and a recent catastrophe has driven a huge demand for his work. He’s good at selling fear because he himself is intensely fearful–of carbon monoxide poisoning, tidal waves, fault lines, and other disasters and their probabilities. While Rich’s tone gives a sense of impending doom, there is an optimistic lightness in Mitchell’s unusual correspondence with an old friend, and it’s this light/dark contrast that I find most interesting about the book so far. I’m also very interested to hear what narrator Kirby Heybourne does with this book, as his performances of Gone Girl and Cloud Atlas are loved by our listeners. --Chris, Audible Editor

And the Mountains Echoed

Khaled Hosseini, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.

FanB14 says:"Does the End Justify the Means"

When it’s been six years since a best-selling author’s last book, there is a heightened sense of anticipation and high expectations surrounding that next release. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini is the perfect example of this and does not disappoint. An expansive family saga, both modern and mythic, the story begins in a small Afghan town in the 1950s and follows one family through time and across the globe to France, California, and Greece. While there is broad sweeping sense of the effect of one generation on the next, it’s the personal relationships between siblings that I found the most memorable; In particular how Abdullah, a 10-year-old boy, becomes the caretaker to his 3-year-old sister, Pari, and does so with

When it’s been six years since a best-selling author’s last book, there is a heightened sense of anticipation and high expectations surrounding that next release. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini is the perfect example of this and does not disappoint. An expansive family saga, both modern and mythic, the story begins in a small Afghan town in the 1950s and follows one family through time and across the globe to France, California, and Greece. While there is broad sweeping sense of the effect of one generation on the next, it’s the personal relationships between siblings that I found the most memorable; In particular how Abdullah, a 10-year-old boy, becomes the caretaker to his 3-year-old sister, Pari, and does so with love, skill, and absolutely no hesitation or resentment. Their forced separation is the catalyst that creates the conflict and momentum propelling the story beyond Afghanistan and into the larger world. I look forward to the audio (including the author’s narration) and then to Hosseini’s next book, regardless of when that may be. --Tricia, Audible Editor